


Too Long in Exile

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Moving In Together, Reunions, Ten in Ten Challenge, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-12
Updated: 2013-09-12
Packaged: 2017-12-26 08:57:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/964045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two times Erik moved in with Charles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Long in Exile

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the trope meme and also the 10 in 10 challenge. Title from Van Morrison.

The first time Erik moved in with Charles, it was easy. Charles said, "I have a house," and Erik said, "Yes," before Charles could even ask the question, and it was done--thought and deed nearly simultaneous. There were details to be managed, of course. The house hadn't been lived in for years, and there was staff to hire and petty disputes to be settled amongst the children (Charles always thought of them that way, though he was only a few years older than that first group, and though they would eventually grow into positions of leadership at his side, he never stopped thinking of them like that), but the real meat of the thing had been settled between him and Erik with few words and fewer doubts.

Erik had his own room, of course, and not just for the sake of appearances. He was always a man who needed his solitude, though too much of it, Charles thought, and he really did get lost in his own head and the dark memories he carried there. But he spent most of his nights in Charles's bed, where they learned each other by touch and taste and thought, reveling in finally having someone else who understood, and Charles thought that light would be enough.

And then it all went wrong. Horribly, painfully, _repeatedly_ wrong. 

Charles still wonders sometimes, decades after the fact, if he could have done something different, if there were some way he could have reached Erik in that moment. Helped him. Saved him. 

That's always where he cuts himself off. He hadn't even been able to save himself, and Erik hadn't wanted to be saved. Not in the way Charles meant it then.

The long years have worn away at both of them, sanding off the rough edges and leaving only their differing philosophies, polished and hard as Emma's diamond skin.

Still, even the most visionary leaders eventually have to gracefully make way for the next generation or get shoved aside. Charles knows when to step back, to let others take the lead and let himself fade into the role of éminence grise before leaving the stage of public affairs altogether.

He has a house, a new one not far from the one he grew up in, the one he turned into a safe haven with Erik, and then a school and a headquarters for a movement he no longer leads. There are apple trees in the backyard, and a small kitchen garden along the east side of the house, where tomatoes and strawberries run rampant in the summertime.

He takes the train into the city one afternoon in late May, sets up his board in Union Square, and waits.

Erik arrives twenty minutes later. He has a copy of the Bugle tucked under his arm and a grease-stained paper bag in his hand and he settles himself into the rickety chair across from Charles with a grunt. 

They are old and grey and have been on opposite sides for so long that Charles sometimes wonders if those days--those _nights_ \--they spent together at the mansion were nothing but a dream he once had. But Erik needs a place to stay, now that the next generation has taken over and they're nothing but old mentors to be left behind, and Charles has always believed in second chances.

"Hello, old friend," he says warmly.

Erik grunts again, but there's a familiar twinkle in his eye that gives Charles hope even though he knows he should be wary and minimize his expectations to avoid yet another heartbreak at Erik's hands. Erik opens his paper sack to reveal two wax-paper-wrapped bowties, glittering with sugary icing. He offers one to Charles, who takes it with delight. 

"Thank you."

"There's no decent bakery up in your neck of the woods," Erik answers with a careless wave of his hand. "Shall we begin?"

They play silently, quickly, as familiar with each other's moves as they are with their own. It's been years since Charles _needed_ to read Erik's thoughts--his tells are quite obvious to someone who's studied him as long and as closely as Charles has--but the desire to do so has never diminished. He doesn't, though, not more than the stray background noise he picks up from everybody and filters out automatically.

In the third game--Erik won the first and Charles won the second--Charles can see that he is six moves away from losing. He lays his king down and Erik raises his eyebrows in surprise.

"It's not like you to give into the inevitable, Charles."

Charles shrugs. "Maybe I've learned a few things over the years, too."

Erik laughs, genuinely, delightedly. "Maybe, but that's one lesson I don't think you ever mastered."

Charles smiles and picks at a lump of icing on the remains of his bowtie. "I have a house," he says, looking everywhere but at Erik's face. "It's not a mansion, and it's not a school, but it's a nice house. There are lilacs in the spring, and fireflies in the summer, and apple trees in the backyard. I have a room for you, a room of your own, if you want it." He looks up, finally, meets Erik's gaze, still smiling softly, hopefully.

"I do," Erik says, reaching out and curling his fingers over Charles's. And even if it's not in answer to the question Charles never got around to asking (though it's finally legal in New York if he did), it'll do.

It takes more than forty long, often bitter years, but the second time Erik moves in with Charles, it's for good.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [An Ordinary Exile (Two Stories Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4227693) by [Unforgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/pseuds/Unforgotten)




End file.
